


On the Precipice

by MichelleDV



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, Ichabod's POV, you will never convince me this isn't true
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 06:33:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26847466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MichelleDV/pseuds/MichelleDV
Summary: Ichabod's POV during the purgatory scene in s1e13, Bad Blood.
Relationships: Ichabod Crane & Abbie Mills, Ichabod Crane/Abbie Mills
Comments: 9
Kudos: 34





	On the Precipice

She'd called him by name. Not ‘Crane’ or the myriad of other nicknames and teasing monikers she'd dubbed him with since they'd met, but ‘Ichabod.’ She’d said his name before, introducing him to others, teasing him about the number of potential offspring he had in his lineage, but it’d never sounded like this.

He felt it in every fiber of his being.  
  
He saw now the effectiveness of his own trickery, how not long ago he'd allowed himself to beg her—Abbie—to let him self-sacrifice to protect the world, before the Sin Eater had entered the room. It was only then, with the declarative use of her Christian name, that she'd quieted, adhered to his pleadings, and agreed to his suicidal plan. And he quietly hated himself for it if she'd felt anything like he did at this moment.  
  
Yet here they stood again, on another precipice, attempting to avert the impending apocalypse, but this time she was choosing to jump—and he abhorred it.  
  
He felt ripped into three: wanting to return—with her—to a world he didn't realize he missed, needing to save his wife as fidelity dictated and he'd sworn he'd do, and desperate to protect Abbie beyond all reason.  
  
And now this. His name on her lips shaking the foundations of his soul.

His eyes flashed between the women standing beside him. Both were flawed—the human condition saw to it that they all were—but of the two, some dark corner of his brain taunted, Katrina deserved purgatory in a way Abbie did not. For Katrina had chosen witchcraft, the occult, and an alliance with dark forces, not to mention lying to him since their initial meeting two centuries ago, as a way of life. (Since learning of her devotion to the dark arts, he'd often wondered if she'd used her witchcraft on him, finagled her way into his life because of his role as a Witness, perhaps cast a spell to wile her way into his affections, if it’d ever truly been _him_ who'd fallen in love with her so long ago.) Abbie, on the other hand, had been tortured and hunted by evil as a young child, traumatized by the events and happenings all around her, and had still chosen to fight them head-on her entire life.  
  
As she was choosing now. Despite her choice fulfilling evil’s prophecy and in spite of his promise that he’d never turn her over to this hellscape and its master, she demanded he let her do this. Her words said she wanted to face Moloch, that she'd stay behind while he went back to save himself, humanity, the world. That she didn't want to run anymore. That it wasn't his choice.

How grateful he was for that, coward that he was. He didn’t wish to make the choice placed before them, for in it lay betrayal. He’d either disavow the woman he’d once pledged his life to, the only one who knew and understood the life from whence he’d came—the only hold he had to a past he knew, a life he’d built, a time that made sense to him—or the one he’d come to love without pretense, who’d rescued _him_ , claimed fealty to him, honored her word, promised to fight alongside him, regardless of any consequence.  
  
She was selfless and brave and _good_ , this diminutive woman who'd somehow come to mean more to him than he'd ever let on. And while he believed _she_ believed her words, he knew what it cost her to speak them, with every molecule fighting against that choice, even as she put on a brave face. Knew, too, she did this for him and Katrina because regardless of the way he felt about his Lieutenant, his words and actions of late had focused solely on the rescue of his wife.

He’d acted a fool, and a blind one to boot, he saw that now. Rescuing Katrina, for all that he hated the idea of her sufferings here, was for him. (And _had_ she suffered? he’d wondered as he’d traipsed through this maze of hell. After two and half centuries, she’d not become one of the numerous monsters he’d witnessed outside. Still had her wits about her, could summon him or Abbie at her whim or call on them in dreams, daily visit a church— _a church?!_ The irony blasted through him at the realization of such a _sacred_ place here, where all others had diminished.—and light a candle for their son, the one she’d never told him about. Suffering seemed relative here, and she appeared no worse the wear for it.) Her secrets, her privilege in this place, they remained a mystery to him.

And all the while, he’d gripped tightly to the vestiges of the Before, when he knew what the world held (or at least thought he had), believed he and Katrina would make a life, a home, a family together after the war. Heavens, look at how he clung to his centuries’ old style, never truly accepting that he’d awoken in an era he couldn’t have imagined in his wildest daydreams. A fool through and through, he realized now, seeing these two women, each of whom played a part in the cleaved eras of his life, stand before him.

In all honesty, though he desired to free Katrina from purgatory, he felt much more beholden to the idealized version of her he'd had _before_ realizing her alliance with the occult and more compelled by the honor-bound responsibility he had as her husband to protect and honor her. Even if that meant rescuing her from her own mistakes.

He stood between the two women: his past and his future.

_His future._ The thought nearly gutted him.  
  
He loved them both, vastly different, confusingly mired, devastatingly torn. One a first love from a time which he belonged to no longer, the other a love that spurred him on with her constant presence and a scorching bond even the fates had deemed impenetrable.

How could he choose anything but himself to leave behind?  
  
Then suddenly, without his permission or askance, they made the choice for him, leaving him reeling. Dear God, not Abbie…  
  
"You _will_ come back for me. That I know," she claimed, strong as ever, fierce as a lioness. One hundred percent believing in him, even as he failed her with his acceptance of this choice they’d made.  
  
Stupid woman. Stupid to have trusted him, to have placed such faith and fealty in an old relic long past his prime. Stupidly brave as she held her composure, lying to his face.  
  
As he'd done to her all this time. He couldn't bear the thought of her in this place, of Moloch having unrestrained access to her and her mind, to the horrors she'd face alone. The monster had tracked her for years, biding his time, waiting to slaughter her. She wouldn’t receive the graces Katrina did, likely wouldn’t escape unscathed.

And wouldn’t remain here one second longer than necessary for Katrina to stop War. He swore it on his own life.  
  
He saw Katrina watching their exchange out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t muster a thought to her sensibilities at this moment. He drew Abbie into his arms, closing his eyes against the roiling emotions threatening his insides. He cupped her head, holding her against him, praying beyond all reason that she'd hold on long enough for them to stop the second horseman and return for her.  
  
"Remember our bond," he implored, hoping to bolster her even the slightest bit. Their connection had saved them thus far; he prayed the tether, if by his sheer will and dedication to her alone, would keep her safe.  
  
She trembled in his arms, and his heart shattered within his chest. "I'll come back for you," he whispered the promise.  
  
She withdrew, and he gripped her arms, imbuing his touch, his expression, his words with all the strength and hope he could deliver to her. "Faith," he fiercely entreated.

Abbie nodded, and then the monster growled at the window, she demanded he go, and he listened—just as he’d promised her—looking back once, twice, before something thrust him out of the same realm as her and she vanished from his sight, leaving his heart broken and bereft.

**Author's Note:**

> This is all totally true, right? Right??  
> I hope you enjoyed this. Please drop me a note if you did!


End file.
